Hello !

I'm writing to you from the Intercity bus from Auckland to National Park, near the Tongarino National Park. Home to Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings films, amongst other nature things.

The final week on the farm was easy enough. I took Friday off to clean my room and pack my things before getting the train back into Wellington.

I really enjoyed the few days I spent in Wellington. Its the nicest city I've been in all year, which I didn't expect.

I fetched my postcards when I left the farm and read them all. Thanks to those who sent them, return cards are on their way... apart from this person. It was a lovely card but you didnt leave your name! Please do let me know who you are!

Quite a few houses have these personal incline elevators!

What a view over Wellington. Very few tall buildings, probably due to the size (200k ppl) and earthquakeyness of the area

These weird geometric shapes are a type of mushroom that start off as little balls

On Sunday I went to visit some distant relatives on the Kapiti coast, north of wellington. It was super nice to meet them & the journey was beautiful.

Lorna (my great auntie many times removed i beleive) and her husband have a few big plots of land on the coast. He made his millions with an online pet business!

This is a big Weta (grasshopper like guy with big fangs) that bit my sock and made me freak out. (Silly Weta, my socks are very thick!)

My buddies in the back seat for the day

Chooks!

dog in a hole

Kapiti Island on the right of the piccie

Lorna & I as I headed back into Wellington. I struggled to take a selfie more than a 25 year old should...

On Monday I went to visit Weta Workshops, who worked on costume for Lord of the Rings amongst other films. No pics of most of the costumes and props inside for copyright reasons (boo!). After the tour I stumbled across an old prison, cows, old military infrastructure and a mausoleum...

Coffee Club: During my time in Wellington, I frequented this fancy coffee bar that did only pourover and pretentious matcha. This coffee had notes of "Candied Ginger, Damask Rose Water & Spearmint". My review was, "yummy". Just like the cookie

Big troll

Can you guess who's face is repeated here 5 times? Ill answer at the end. This person has never worked with Weta, but came for a private tour and got his face moulded for the fun of it.

One for gorilla fans

Tin foil sculpting is a job and you can do it at Weta! My bloke and snail wont make the cut, i think.

Cool frog

Cows grazing with Wellington in the background

A fairy village

I took Tuesday easy, riding the cable car for the second time & getting a hair cut.

On Wednesday I caught the 11.5 hr Northern Explorer train from Wellington to Auckland. We rode through lots of lush pasture & over some breathtaking viaducts. Halfway through the journey my headphones broke, so I now have to go music-less until I can get them replaced :(

I said an early morning goodbye to the worst water fountain they possibly could have installed . The buckets fill and tip, totally randomly, into the buckets below. This creates an anxiety inducing weight as a large metallic crashing noise happens at random intervals, followed by water splashing all over the street. Poor effort Wellington!

The mountains I am visiting today

And today, Thursday, I am getting a 6 hr bus back south. Turns out my train ran through the exact town I'm heading back to. But I really wanted to do the full train journey so I'm not mad.

Bye for now! (It was Jackie Chan, btw)

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from the Mangaroa Valley, same house as last time! It's been 4 weeks since I last wrote an update. Lots to catch up on.

We've had a good span of clear weather, starting with frosty bike rides to the Market Garden, followed by T-Shirt weather as the sun warms the valley.

I've lead a quiet life the last 4 weeks, baking plenty of bread, making yoghurt and kombucha in my spare time.

Highlights include...

• Cycling across the Remutaka Rail Trail and back. I intended to camp on the other side, but cycled back anyways. All that extra weight from my tent was for nothing!
• Going for a hike at the filming site for Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.
• Pretty sunsets
• House partying with the locals as a farewell for our hosts

Some trees we planted (in the foreground, the hills are not my work)

Large block of concrete left in a shed by a disgruntled contractor

The only bread picture I took

A frosty cycle to the market garden

The work is better described as gardening than farming. It has mostly been weeding, cleaning, packing, sewing, transplanting, mulching and tree planting. I've learned a lot from talking to the people working on the farm too.

Sadly, over my time here I've learned that the whole farm project exists as a bunker for two American ex-silicon valley multimillionaires. They have an unerground bunker, secret food supplies, their own bio-diesel facility and plans to isolate the whole valley in the apocalypse. They run it like a ruthless business, don't treat their staff particularly well and use cheap imported labour (i.e. me) to avoid hiring people from the local community. Talk about a "community" farm. It's really a community for rich white hippie folk who can afford land in one of the richest areas in wellington, which is a shame.

With this said, the experience showed me the type of project I don't want to be involved in going forward, whilst also teaching me a lot about what I do want to do.

Old steam engines that used to run on the Remutaka Incline Railway, now the cycle path

The view from the swing bridge on the descent, I had to ride back up this way shortly after

Sunset on the ride back home

Homemade cinnamon rolls

My pet spider

My 5 legged rescue pet spider (different spider, I didn't torture the other one (nor this one))

I'm ready to move on now, which I do next Friday. In the mean time I'm going to enjoy a day off for the king's birthday on Monday. I'm hoping for an easy week after that where I dont have to babysit some rich person's kids (thats something I've had to do too)

After I leave, Ill have a few weeks round the north island, then I fly home via Hong Kong, China & Doha, landing 9th July in London!

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from 351 Whitemans Valley Road, Whitemans Valley, Upper Hutt 5371, New Zealand (Postcards encouraged, ill be here for a while).

Last Thursday I arrived at the farm & met the 3 other workaways (a brit, a dutchie and a yank) and my host, Halina (sans her partner, Zeb, who arrives in a week). I've got my own room in a lovely 6 bed house (a nice break from hostels and tents).

We had one day of work on Friday before having the house to myself whilst everyone else went to the women's circle in the evening.

We headed into Wellington on Saturday for drinks and live music which was good fun.

I spent Tues and Wednesday mostly weeding and prepping beds in the market garden. It's surprisingly tiring, especially as we only do 5 hours a day.

Across the market garden. The farm shop is just to the right.

The fireplace comes in handy on cold evenings. It's well into the single digits at night and kiwi homes arent built for cold

The Whitemans Valley

The view over the winding descent into Trentham. I hope the weather holds so I can get out cycling more!

Moo cows!

Everyone here is really lovely. I instantly felt at home as soon as I arrived. It's a really relaxing pace of life out here, especially as we dont work afternoons! I've gotten back into baking bread (almost daily because it goes down so well with everyone!) I'll probably leave a few weeks between updates whilst I'm here, so dont fret if its been a while with no mail, I'm not dead, just baking!

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from The Marion in Wellington. We've had a lot of rain the past few days. They even declared a state of emergency shortly after I arrived. (Unsure if this is a coincidence)

This was the last week of our south island road trip, as Bethan splits to go north and I stay in Wellington.

Last Wednesday we went north via Wanaka and camped in a free camp not far from Mount Cook.

A fence covered in bras. How strange!

This guy again...

The view from the campsite

On Thursday we hiked near the base of Mount Cook. We weren't as lucky as I had been when taking the bus north a few weeks ago, as the mountain was shrouded by cloud.

Not the best view, but still amazing!

I love these mini suspension bridges. I always make sure to walk out of step with everyone else to stop them swaying too much (Like happened to the Millennium Bridge in London!)

A very well behaved goat in the visitor centre

We spent the eve camping near Lake Tekapo. In the morn we hiked up to the observatory for a nice view over Lake Tekapo.

Turns out hobbits are real and they enjoy caravanning like the rest of us

A perfect evening campsite beer right here

Stars!

We left to Oamaru in the afternoon afternoon, and arrived in time to see some penguins come in for the night. We didn't see any of the rare yellow eye penguins come in, but plenty of the tiny Blue Penguins at another spot.

What that dawg doin?

Penguins, facing a wall of people

It was nice seeing the penguins initially. We made sure to keep quiet and relatively far back. It was clear they wanted to get up and cross the road. We felt quite off put by the whole experience, however, as there were 10s of tourists just stood right at the penguins, pointing cameras at them. Theres a dedicated man to tell people to give them space, who was clearly sick of dealing with us tourists. Please don't be these people. I hope they all got some nice pics to look at once in exchange for stressing these penguins out!

We spent Saturday morning wandering around Oamaru. It turned out to be one of the favourite towns I've visited so far. Because of the lack of native trees in the area, the original settlers built everything out of the local Limestone. This made for building with much more character than the average Aus/NZ buildings of the time. It's a shame there was absolutely no nightlife past 10pm. No wonder all the young people move to Australia!

This building reminds me of brutalist council housing blocks. Please hear me out...

There was a period of time in the UK where they wanted and started to tear down all the old Victorian buildings because they looked "ugly". One bloke decided that he would try cleaning his big Victorian building's frontage. People very quickly realised the buildings weren't ugly, they were covered in decades of ugly smog. We very quickly stopped tearing them down. I think its a very similar story for the brutalist buildings in much of the UK. We've never cleaned them, they now look horrible and people want them gone (also they want them gone so they can replace social housing with private rented housing, but that's another issue).

This building shows really well what putting a bit of TLC into your city can do to how it looks. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Whats nicer? The buildings on the left or the woolies on the right? I much prefer how the woolies is devoid of any features that make it interesting to look at... In all seriousness, its this bland kinda architecture which is why im pretty keen to get back to the UK at this point

Enough ranting about architecture... Heres a bull bloke on a laptop in the Steampunk museum!

Metal frog

Pretty sunset from the car

Saturday afternoon and Sunday were mainly transit days, passing through Christchurch on the way to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellington.

This guy!

The harbour at picton. We took a slightly larger boat across the Cook Strait

Monday and Tuesday were chill days. I'd drank a lot of beer the past few days! (And i drank a lot more on tuesday too, oops)

Silly Kiwi

A succulent Chinese meal! Mapo tofu (which is not, as I had assumed, veggie, owing to all the pork mince in it)

I felt like I was in some sort of fever dream walking past these blokes at 11pm whilst the city was entirely empty.

Coffee Club: I enjoyed this coffee and croissant. (The rest of the coffee has still been mediocre compared to Aus)

Strange dog

Another succulent Chinese meal! Chongqing Hot and Sour Glass Noodle Soup. I'm happy I went medium spice only!

Tomorrow I'll be heading to volunteer at Mangaroa Farm, north of Wellington. They're a "community food hub and education centre" practising regenerative (friendly reminder that regular intensive farming is killing our land, regen all the way!) sheep and beef farming, alongside a small veg farm for their farm shop. Depending on how it goes, I'll be there for between a week and a month. (And if I enjoy it a lot, maybe ill swap my keyboard for a spade when I come home)

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe [here](https://hermes.15062000.xyz/subscription/form

Hello !

I'm writing to you from LyLo Hostel in Queenstown. There has been a cyclone on the North Island and we've had the tail of it here. We've been getting down to 1-3 degrees at night. Chilly!

Last Thursday we went to see Franz Joseph Glacier.

You can't get much closer these days without a) risking your life by walking down the riverbed or b) taking a helicopter which further contributes to the melting of the glacier

The glacier security guard

Me with my stalker again (I have since shaved btw)

I am in love with Suzuki Jimmys. I like this one

We then went for a little walk to a nearby gorge

Box of explosives on the trail, always useful

The water is grey because its glacial. It contains lots of sediment from the glacier.

There were only 3 of us so we couldn't test this sign

That evening we drove 20k down a gravel road to a campsite on the sea near Fox Glacier. (Dont tell the rental company, we're only meant to do 500m gravel)

We got some really good views of the sky and quite a lovely sunrise on the Friday.

I don't have the best camera setup for astrophotography, but I was happy with this one!

The tallest mountain in this pic is Aoraki/Mount Cook at 3700m!

After the sunrise we went to see Fox Glacier before heading to Wanaka.

I think I might be considered a security risk. This man followed me to both glaciers we visited.

Those big rocks are one of the many reasons they don't like you walking up to the glaciers. People still do it because people are people.

Saturday was chilled out for me. I went for a morning run then we headed to Wanaka. Bethan woke up at 3am to do a sunrise hike, I had a nice lie in instead.

Tourists go mad for a photo with this tree. I am not above being a tourist so I had to get a picture too

Coffee Club: Coffee has been dire at quite a few places in NZ, but this Piccolo bucked the trend. Quite yummy indeed. And only £2.61

Winter is coming, but Autumn is very much here

On the way to Queenstown we stopped in Arrowtown, a picturesque ex-gold mining town.

Ice Cream Club: Dulce de Leche on bottom and some berry & Mascarpone on top. Yum

I met my idols

Kiwis enjoy putting cones in places they shouldnt be. It seems theyre stuck in the mindset of british uni students. And I love it

I have spotted a business opportunity

On Sunday I went for a hike towards Ben Lomond before we headed south towards Milford Sound

Spot the cone

Spot the cone (Easy Edition)

I started this hike with half a bag of crisps and half a bottle of water. I ended up trail running down cause it was very fun. My legs hurt now tho

On Monday, after another lie in at the hostel, we hit the road to find our campsite near Milford Sound

A misty stopover on our way to the Eglinton Valley campsite

After a cold and wet night, we drove to Milford Sound for our boat trip. It was breathtakingly beautiful!

Stupid freeloader didnt pay their way and got a free trip :(

We got up close to the edge to see how the plants grow without any topsoil, all clinging onto the rocks and each other. This means when a tree dies and falls, it takes all the others around it with it. We also got to see a cool seal. The captain said that when white people first found Milford Sound, there were 10s of thousands of seals there. Within a few days, they had all been killed. Whilst its sad, we couldnt help but be impressed by the seal killing efficiency they must've had.

I can confirm there is no gold at either end of the rainbow. Sad but at least we can stop looking now

And now we're back in Queenstown on Wednesday. Its another chill day where we're gonna drive to Mt Cook as we head towards the North Island. I will be leaving the road trip in Wellington to work on a community run farm for a few weeks, cause i'm getting super burnt out with the pace. But I'm still looking forward to this last week of road trippin.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from a cafe in Franz Joseph. It's been a mix of weather. We've had sun, fog, rain, both hot and cold.

Right after the last email on Wednesday, I hopped in a van with a welsh girl I met on a Facebook group for backpackers called Bethan. We were embarking on a 4 week road trip round New Zealand. We also had Bri, Erin & Ilona joining for the first week.

On the first day we drove over to Greymouth via Arthurs Pass. We got in a tad late and set up camp in the garden of a hostel.

A viewpoint near Arthurs Pass

This is a Kea. They're quite ingenious, known to eat parts of cars & tents to get to the food inside. This one seems to have taken an interest in either my camera or me.

On Thursday we drove north to Able Tasman National Park. We passed very close to the Mangles Valley (early subscribers may remember the Mangles Bay in Perth. This valley gets its name from the same family & their horrible dealings in the 19th century). We didnt have time to visit so I couldnt get a piccie with this piece of Mangles history. (For the Mangles unaware, a friend of mine is a Mangles)

This is part of the pancake rocks. Formed by alternating types of stuff being dropped by the ocean & then compressing into layers

A blowhole! (I don't know who trapped a whale inside the rocks here, seems quite mean)

Part of a little river walk after the pancake rocks

Friday was a busy day. We hiked into the Able Tasaman national park from our hostel, caught the water taxi back, then headed to a bush doof (kinda illegal forest rave) to get fully immersed in Aus/Kiwi degenerate culture.

The main view on our hike after mostly walking through hilly forest tracks on the coast. The girls weren't a fan of most of the walk, but I quite liked it

A quick stopover on the way to the doof

Descending into the valley was pretty special. Game: Spot me

Quite the setup for a bunch of hippies in a field!

I was rather hungover on Saturday, where the main goal was to simply make it to the campsite in Nelson.

Nelson was quite quiet, but pretty! Especially as the trees start to turn golden as we head into Autumn.

I wish we had solar superloos in the UK

For my ex-colleagues: My first encounter with SBS :o (For the non-engineites, SBS is a client of my old company, much like AMP from my earlier mails in Sydney)

The sunset view from the "Middle of New Zealand" (For the pedants amongst my subscribers, according to the signs at the viewpoint, this is the middle specifically for cartographers, as measurements in NZ are relative to this point)

Me at the middle. It would sure hurt if that big pin fell loose

On Sunday we made the drive to foggy Kaikōura for two nights of camping. For Monday I skipped the whale watching tour the others were doing (which was a good call cause I got a lie in and they didn't see whales) and had a lazy day of recovery instead. I was in nelson that we lost Ilona & Erin to two handsome German blokes headed north.

Bethan felt at home knowing there were fellow Welsh sheep shaggers in the vicinity of this pub

Some seals doing whatever deals do (Judging by the smell, they were all using the toilet)

The view over part of the seal colony. This rocky bit of land is only 1000 or so years old.

Which brings us to Tuesday, when we packed up camp and headed back to Christchurch.

A panorama taken on the prime meridian in Greenwich in what must've been the early 90s based on what can be seen of Canary Wharf in the far right. Its amazing how much the skyline of London has grown since this piccie. (If that's good or bad is open to discussion)

My second encounter with SBS! I was very excited.

And that brings us to Wednesday where I'm a bit hungover. We're gonna collect a new member of the gang, Achilles, a French-Canadian guy. We've also lost Bri, she's staying here to meet up with her parents when they land. We're gonna drive back over Arthurs Pass to Hokitika today.

Part of the rainy & foggy hike to see the Devils Punchbowl waterfall. The weather made for an amazing atmosphere as we hiked through the mossy forest tracks.

A steamboat at our campsite from the goldrush era in the nearby Hokitika.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from a little cafe in Christchurch, New Zealand! Its a beautiful crisp 11c autumn day.

Last Thursday I took a day trip to Port Arthur, yet another ex-convict site in Tasmania. We kept managing to find the most picturesque places to put our petty criminals.

Would you rather: Get sent to Australia and do hard labour here for 7 years OR live in Milton Keynes for 1 week?

White choc & Lavender ice cream at a Lavender farm, yum!

I wore a hole in the back of my shirt cause my rucksack is too heavy & patched it up with this floral print.

On Friday I was going to go to MONA, a museum in Hobart run by an eccentric gambling millionaire. As I was walking to catch the camo wrapped ferry, I realised I had no tickets... Turns out i booked them for Thursday :(

I managed to hop on the bus north to Devonport thanks to some no shows & had a quiet night before rising early for the Saturday ferry.

I spent most of the 8 hrs on the ferry nattering to a lovely aussie couple who ended up even buying me dinner on the ferry! How lovely.

I had a chilled out day in Melbourne on Sunday, eating a lot of Chinese food & visiting the Chinese museum. A very Chinese day.

A replica seismoscope. Originally invented in China around 50AD. A ball drops out of the dragon's mouth to indicate where the earthquake is coming from

Monday was the day I caught a flight to Queenstown, New Zealand. I'm happy to be moving on from Australia. It got a bit tough to meet people towards the end of the trip. I sat in the lounge before the flight, courtesy of the lounge pass from Drew (thank you drew), and decided to do a wine tasting of all the free wine. When in Rome! Nothing was quite to my taste, but I was tipsy enough to be called on the tannoy as I was late to the gate.

The flight in was perhaps one of the most picturesque I've ever taken, passing over the rugged Fiordland National Park & landing in a valley north of Queenstown.

The mountains of the Fiordlands

On Tues I caught the bus straight to Christchurch to meet someone with whom I plan to share a car rental over the next few weeks. As I write this I am sat in a cafe waiting to be picked up. Let's hope we all get on!

This bloke is following me around New Zealand and stands outside every 4 square supermarket telling me which town I'm in. Someone send help

Tram! I'm happy now

A pub in an old church in which I had 5 pints last night with some brits from the hostel. Paracetamol and lots of water are in order today!

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I am again writing to you from Narrara Backpackers in Hobart after 4 nights camping. It's been a bit rainy today, but still still 20c.

Last Thursday I went and bought even more gear, including a down jacket to prepare for lower temps in my upcoming travels (Queenstown, where I will be headed very soon, is already getting down to low single digits some nights. And I intend to be outside some of those nights)

Friday was another lazy day. I sat and watched YouTube all day until my 3pm bus north. I arrived at Freycinet National Park just after sundown to find all the campsites booked. Luckily they'd got my email and I was one of those who booked!

The view from my site

Saturday I woke up and found a few venomous Jack Jumper Ants on my tent. I can confirm they do enjoy jumping around. I set off for a 10km walk to Wineglass Bay campground. I had to cary all of my water in, because all the creeks from which I could collect water to filter were dry. I took it easy and went for two swims in the pristine water.

The train of old people I followed up the hill cause I was slow

Wineglass Bay - People go mental for this pic on social media. It's nice, but idk what the fuss is about

Ok, it is a very nice beach. Perfect for swimming

In the eve I was making my wraps for dinner and was twice paid a visit by the resident Wallabies who, I have since learned, have a reputation for their boldness. Twice they tried to steal my food. The Aussie camped next to me remarked "it's better they steal your food than mine" (They later tried to steal his food, suck it aussie man)

I couldnt get them to leave, shouting & stamping does nothing.

This is their only facial expression. Throw sand at them, -_-. Poke them with a stick, -_-. Shout at them, -_-. You get it.

They look at you with the emptiest of stares no matter what you do. After observing the aussie man scare off his wallabies, I learned that throwing sand at them was somewhat effective. I tried this, but they just stood there, handful after handful. So I employed a Wallaby stick, which I used to push the wallabies off the nearby bank and back towards to family with a small child camped nearby.

Wallaby back where it belongs

Me after throwing sand at 5 wallabies

A stingray!

I woke the next day, and with half a litre water to my name, started the 11km hike back to the nearest tap. I set off early and made it, quite parched, but alive!

I killed the rest of the day with a beer, fish, chips and an ice cream before camping the same place I had two nights before.

Monday saw me rise early to pack up and catch the 7am bus to Triabunna to visit Maria Island, an ex-convict site. It's quite a picturesque place! There are definitely worse place to be locked up.

I rented a bike to explore the Island before retiring to my tent to hear the Tassie Devils scream all night. Its honestly a horrible sound, like the really loud screechy fireworks that don't actually make any pretty lights (the worst fireworks, I may add)

That beach is obviously not 4 miles long

Spot the snake! All of them are Venomous here

A wale vertebrae, I think. Huge!

Wallaby! Finally seen one

I had another early start on Tues to hike up Bishop & Clerk track before the weather turned. I started off by forgetting to sign the logbook at the start, meaning if I decided to fall off a cliff and break my leg, nobody would know I was out there. Maybe 5 mins from the top I heard a very loud strike of thunder and realised the weather was about to turn. I decided to ignore this warning and proceed almost all the way to the top. By the time I'd got near to the summit, I was deep within the clouds. The final ascent seemed to require some full on bouldering. I didnt feel like slipping on the wet rock and dying, so I layered up as the wind picked up, realised the clouds werent going away and descended back to camp.

The challenge for the day, reach one of the peaks on the left!

Start of the smaller boulder field on the climb to the top. They got much bigger than this

It got very windy at this point

Back at the bottom, exploring the Coffee house. Completed with original wallpaper from the 1880s!

My visa application for New Zealand got approved during my sketchy hike, so I'm ready for my flight to Queenstown on the 30th!

I caught the ferry back to Triabunna, got a beer, fish and chips before the bus back to Hobart.

And today, I've sorted my stuff out post the trip & booked a few tours over the next two days. I later learned that the bus i was relying on to catch my ferry to Melbourne is fully booked! (Thanks tassie public transport) So I'm gonna have to turn up on the day and hope someone cancelled, otherwise it'll be a last minute flight & ill be out quite a few pounds for non-refundable hostel and ferry bookings. Wish me luck!

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from the Narra Backpackers in Hobart. It's a cozy place near the centre of town. Its been overcast and 12-20c, not too warm but not exactly Baltic.

I took a hike out of Penguin last Thursday towards Mt Montgomery in the Dial ranges in Northern Tasmania. I made it about a quarter of the way up before I had to rush back to base with an icky tummy. Its safe to say I took the rest of the day easy, getting a beer and some chips overlooking the sea in Pengin.

Looking out towards Penguin

All the bollards in Penguin are penguins!

No, I didnt get a cocktail, that's a sour beer

That night I took a bus to Forth, a small town of 700 people, to test out my camp gear on their campground. All went smoothly, it got down to 8c but I was plenty cozy, maybe a little too warm!

The view from my tent

Friday morning saw me rise early to catch the only bus before 2pm and head to Launceston, where I would stay until Monday.

A cool train in the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston. Shame they don't have any more passenger rail here :(

On Saturday I rose early to make it to the Saturday farmers market. I was so glad to be back surrounded by amazing produce, its been one of my favourite parts of the trip. It was such a nice vibe. I got some Kombucha & Quince Mead from a lovely bloke on one of the stalls.

My repeated visits to markets have made me a very bad budget traveller

Coffee Club: The coffee has been Okay for Aussie standards, still better than the UK. I'm still enjoying my Piccolos. I'm not Melbourne enough to order Magics yet. (My tassie mate said they think the coffee hear is better than the mainland :o)

A lovely court backing onto two arcades. I find it funny how I dislike consumerism & shopping centres, but put them in an old brick building and I go crazy for it

After the markets, I hiked up to Cataract Gorge & on to the old hydro power plant. Luckily the hike didn't suffer the same fate as last time

Looking back to Launceston

Someone liked their woolies trolley enough to liberate it from its chains back in the shopping centre & bring it a considerable way along this trail. Run free little trolley!

There were so many little lizards out getting their sun. Most of them had the instinct to run away before I snapped a pic, but this one knew I was not capable of doing them any harm and stayed a while.

The suspension bridge heading over to the old hydro plant. I didn't expect it so be so wobbly.

On Sunday I had a lie in after finishing my Mead (it was 9% and very much a homebrew, but I enjoyed it) and heading to the pub with a friend from the hostel. Later I went to the other half of the Queen Victoria Museum, which had a lot of weird hyperrealistic sculptures that I found a bit uncomfortable.

The only sculpture I liked (I didnt like the 8ft tall spider)

Not a sculpture, but a templte donated to the museum. Chinese tin workers came over in the 17th century & would set up temples wherever they settled. This one was move here for preservation.

After the museum I wandered over to the park. Unbeknownst to me, they had a free swing band playing in the park with a period appropriate (old) couple dancing along. Things like this would be amazing to see in our parks in the UK, but they so rarely get put on for free!

Monday saw me depart Launceston for Hobart. I spent about 2 hrs on the bus listening to a woman scroll Facebook reels out loud on her phone before they got too loud and I asked her to stop. I can't wait to bring this newfound skill back to the UK to shout at kids on the train doing the same thing.

The weather in Hobart has been overcast but no rain, so I shan't complain.

I'm not much of a boat person, but this was a cool boat

The best view I've had all trip. The fish n chips were good & I discovered Hartz's sodas. They seem to be Tassies answer to Bundaberg sodas (We don't do fizzy drinks like the Aussies do)

I found a hippie food store near the hostel and was delighted. I went and bought a bunch of overpriced hippie stuff, including a new toothbrush. Little did I know I got a children's size pink toothbrush. Because I am a super macho man I was most displeased at the pinkness of the toothbrush, as you can see.

I went for a run to the Botanic gardens and along the river on Tuesday.

The Japanese garden

The view back north, 1/4 of the way across the Tasman Bridge. Much like the chicken, I was only crossing to see what was on the other side. Given this was a busy road bridge I hated it and turned back early. We'll never know what's on the other side

That's a lot of logs. As they always do, logging companies have been ravaging Tassie forests with little respect to the land. Luckily there are lots of groups protesting and stopping them from doing so.

The view over to Mt Wellington. My challenge for Wednesday was to hike to the top.

And here we are on Wednesday! I hiked up to the top of Mt Wellington & caught the bus down to meet my friend at the pub. 10km with 1235 meters climbed. I'll sleep well tonight!

Where there are ferns there are leeches. Luckily I escaped with all my blood today.

Spot the wallaby

The view from the top was mental. You could see Hobart, Bruny Island, the Tasman Peninsula and up to Cradle Mountain in the north. (That's about 180kms away as the crow flies). We're about 1.2km above the city below here.

From what I overheard from some Aussie, Cradle Mountain is big peak on the left of the image on the horizon.

I'm enjoying Tasmania a bit more now. Ive got rough plans to head over to Freycinet and Maria Island for some overnight hiking trips in the coming days.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from The Happy Backpacker in Penguin, Tasmania. It's been one of the first rainy days this summer in Tassie, the farmers will be happy! The weather for the rest of the week should be warm, from 9 to 20c

First up are some more piccies from last week's stay at the YHA in Pittwater, courtesy of the German bloke, Matt

The blood moon at it's peak. It was quite special to be so remote and see it so clearly

A monitor lizard, maybe a meter or so long

The orb weaver (i think, also not venomous) who's web I walked into

Last Friday I caught an early train to Canberra, arriving in at mid day. I checked in at the only hostel in the city, mostly full of French people in the city for construction jobs. Canberra isn't a city people normally come to when backpacking, but I wanted to see what the deal was.

It's got a lot of potential, but its very clear it was designed with cars as the main way to get around :( It feels walkable but everything is so far apart that youd be silly to try and walk around (which i did of course)

The museums and sights are really good though!

Cool plane. This part of the war memorial gave me similar vibes to the extension at Kings Cross Station

One thing Canberra does well is impressive lines of sight. In the distance you can see both the old and new parliament houses.

Thank you Gas Industry, your generous contribution to the war memorial will never be forgotten (Read the plaque)

The National Carillon. Donated by the UK to mark 50 years of Australia, i think.

Someone needs to go to Gateshead and double check the angel of the north is still there. (This angel is also in the south of Australia so doesnt make any sense)

The left is the relief used to print the part of the print on the right. Its made out of wood, not linoleum, so required a lot of processing to remove the grain from the wood. Nowadays this would just be done in Photoshop (or by a robot)

Old Parliment house lit up for Enlighten festival. They had loads of events inside & you cold just roam around and sit in the chambers

Parliamentary karaoke

On Saturday I hit up a few more museums.

Parliament, fittingly, looks rather evil here

Spot the Palpatine

Sunday saw me rise early to take the train into Melbourne. I ended up getting a coach most of the way instead because the train was too busy.

Monday I had a lie in before going to buy more camping gear ahead of the Tuesday ferry to Tassie.

A cool laneway (side street) in melbourne

Apple & Pear and Hokey Pokey gelato. Yum

Tuesday was the day of my 11 hr ferry to Devonport, Tasmania. I was gonna join a group with a car to drive round tassie for a week, but the bloke was rather weird, so that fell through. Instead I stayed the night in Devonport.

The view leaving Port Phillip

A nice telegraph poll in front of the ferry in Devonport. It looks a lot less cloudy than it felt

Another example with Australia's obsession with making big versions of things

On Wednesday it was rainy nearly all day. I decided to head to Penguin, a town named for its little penguins, to the west of Devonport. Its a lovely little town, very quiet.

Which takes us to Wednesday eve. I got a bit overwhelmed the past few days with planning the whole thing without a car, so gonna try and take it a bit easier the next few days. Tomorrow I'm gonna go for a hike then see where I want to go.

Book Club

We have a new segment because I just finished winner of the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Finishing it on Monday was the culmination of close to 6 months traversing it's 760 overwritten, incoherent and obscene pages.

Books that reach this level of critical acclaim may normally make their way onto the big screen. Gravity's rainbow has evaded the big screen, simply for the fact that displaying a significant chunk of the scenes described in the book would likely be highly illegal in most countries. The narrative makes the plot of Christopher Nolan's 2020 film, Tenet, feel like a children's story whilst saying absolutely nothing of any interest.

I cannot describe how upset I am with myself for deciding to push on with this awful book, nor how glad I am to be able to read something else.

On that note...

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from 790 on George Backpackers in Sydney. Its a comfortable but basic hostel.

Public Service Announcement

The Archive has been updated to include all past newsletters that may anyone may have missed.

---

The weather has been quite wet all week, sitting in the mid to low 20s most of the time.

Last Wednesday we headed into the Southern Highlands after collecting my glasses. We stopped at a few local sights, with a pint and a parmi at The Sutton Forest Inn. It was quite possibly the nicest pub I've been to here. It felt quite homely, like a lot of pubs back home.

Radioative glow in the dark glass. It wsa a big fad back in the early 20th century. Its totally safe to eat from (but probably not to drink from)

Dec looking awkward looking back south towards Wollongong

On Thursday we found ourselves back in Sydney. We got a decent coffee before I went to fetch my jacket from Bondi beach.

Liverpool, the hippest city in England?!!?

Reunited!

In the afternoon we went to watch an aussie rules game in torrential rain. We got wholly soaked and left halfway through. Later that night we went for dinner with a canadian bloke on his first ever travels. We took him for his first ever pint in a pub (i feel old) at quite possibly the worst pub in Sydney. I hope he had a memorable first pint.

Dec left in the early afternoon on Friday, so we went to a few museums. After he left I went straight back to the Blue Mountains to avoid the expensive hostels caused by Sydney Mardi Gras.

Not sure whats going on here. The gallery was full of Chinese art

On Saturday I met back up with Dylan, who I'd met earlier in Adelaide & Melbourne. The weather was rubbish so we got coffee (yum) and found some gems in a local charity shop.

Never seen cups like this before!

Saturday saw us attempt a hike to Castle Head. A simple out and back 9km route. We ended up making it 16km incl. the walk to the start of the trail. It also decided to rain the whole time... We came back quite damp. Some beers fixed morale.

Clock with a train in it. I'm interested

This shop is classified as a terrorist organisation by 23 countries

Purple slug

This was about a 200m drop :o

A great view

Yummy beer as a reward for the hike

On Monday I left the Blue Mountains to head to the Ku-ring-gai national park. A total of 4 hrs travelling on train, bus and ferry. You have to bring all your food as theres no shops near the hostel. The area is like nothing else ive seen. Scotland Island is a small island of 700 people accessible only by boat. I met a local on the ferry who said theres a lot of gossiping going on, lots of rich people that only come on weekends, but a lovely network of women that have helped her feel welcome.

View of Scotland Island from the Ferry

On Tuesday I went for a hike with people from the hostel. It feels so remote here, despite how close we are to the city. We ended up going into pretty overgrown rainforest, running into a snake, 3 big spiders and many, many leaches.

Spot the snake. (A Diamond Python, non-venomous)

Spot the blue ant. It was about half an inch long

In the evening I made an amazing BBQ veg & bean curry. We sat around the campfire & watched the lunar eclipse. Ill add some photos of that next time when I get them.

On Wednesday I got a lift back to Sydney via the beach with people from the hostel before heading for drinks with Jake & Tom from my old job (we forgot to get a picture!)

And now its Thursday. Ive had a lie in and gone to purchase some camping gear for a future trip. Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from the YHA in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. Its been a humid week which has worn away at Dec and I at times. It's not all sunshine and rainbows over here, you know!

Pedantry Corner

This section, with a name stolen from Private Eye, is to address reported inaccuracies in previous newsletters. Who said I don't have journalistic integrity!

I previously stated there were twelve (well, 7 because two fell over and two never existed) apostles. The mathematicians amongst my subscribers identified that 7 + 2 + 2 = 11, not 12.

The truth to this rocky religious riddle is that the amount of apostles is of 7, 9 or 12 depending on many factors. Who cares. In a few hundred years or so they'll all have fallen over and we'll have to find new rocks to look at. For those interested, see this article.

---

Back to usual programming.

Last Thursday, we started the day by noticing the poster for the Foo Fighters that I had vandalised the night before, cleverly replacing one of the Fs with a P, had been replaced with a new, less vandalisable, version overnight. Clearly Dave Grohl can't take a joke.

On Friday we moved to a new hostel in Bondi Beach which had a number of draconian rules and fines, along with a rude owner. We decided to walk the Bondi to Coogee Coastal walk to avoid being fined.

Back at Shark Point, 3 years later. Last time (below) was much sunnier. Still pooed myself standing there this time.

A cool crab we had a stand-off with

On Saturday we went for a walk in the scorching midday sun at Hornby Lighthouse, at the mouth of the Sydney Harbour.

I can't believe they did tree vandalism at the Nudist beach (we saw quite a few old blokes with their dingledangles out)

Then we came home and got hammered on the beach with people from the hostel. I lost the fleece my sister got me for Christmas :( I'm never drinking ever again. (Until we had 3 schooners then next day)

Sunday took us to Wollongong (The Gong), a city south of Sydney to see old uni friend, Eamon. We stayed in his parents house which was rather lovely, backing onto a little creek.

The view looking north of the Gong from Mt Kiera

I last saw Eamon (left) 3 years ago, then 3 years before that. I wonder what will 2026 have in store?

Me with a coin with a bullet hole in it. Context: Some local bloke came up to us at the pub asking for a lighter talking about needing to walk home with a heavy bag of coins he found on the street. He then wheeled over a shopping trolley with a very heavy bag of coins, before showing us all the coins he, presumably, stole, including this one.

On Monday we rented a car and drove to the Blue Mountains. We picked up some kangaroo burgers on the way up and fired up the barbie (no shrimps) as soon as we got to the YHA from which I am writing this update.

Me with as many as 30 eggs. They don't do eggs like this at home

Kanga burgers were yummy, much like beef. We wanted kangaroo sausages cause they call them Kanga Bangas in the shop, but we couldnt find any.

On Tuesday we rose somewhat early for a hike to the Grand Canyon (aussie version), the Giant Stairway (900 steps!) & the Three Sisters Mountains. Dec was upset because he got a leech halfway :(

There's no smoke without fire. I left this shelter on the hike very quickly

The Three Sisters. No confusion here as to the amount of sisters. The apostles could learn a lesson

The reason I keep going all wide legged in photos like this is actually because this is as far as I can go & i need to improve my god awful flexibility.

More flexibility training

This cheeky bugger tried to take my ice cream. Unlucky!

Somehow this is (touch wood) the biggest spider ive seen all trip (maybe the size of a large Pea)

And now we're back to Wednesday, where we're gonna drive back to Wollongong to collect my glasses I left there before visiting some spots Eamon recommended. (He can't join because he has something called a job that he has to do on Wednesdays)

I had a request for some coffee related content, as the coffee is meant to be good in Aus, which it is. Every coffee we've had since that has been bang average so no updates. I hope to include some joe next week.

Also, for the musically inclined, I will recommend you check out Way Dynamic - So Familiar.. Dec got me onto them and I'm enjoying them a lot.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from The Summer House hostel in Kings Cross, Sydney. There's no air con here, we're staying in a tiny 6 man room and it was 36c yesterday. It's safe to say its a bit stuffy.

This episode of the newsletter has been quite the epic, given the hostel's god awful WiFi, so I hope it was worth the effort!

Since I last wrote to you, Dec & I have been quite busy! Last Thursday saw us hit the road early, leaving Melbourne at 8am to drive the Great Ocean Road, a scenic coastal drive to the south west of Melbourne. We drove it as a over two days, stopping in Apollo Bay for a night.

Me dealing with a dangerous shark that escaped the ocean. Dec didnt quite understand how to use a camera at this point in time.

A cool waterfall

They knew I was coming

We went into a spooky rainforest at 9PM to look for glow worms. We saw no glow worms but did end up feeling like we were going to get eaten by dinosaurs

Giant ferns in the redwood forest! Feels like a dinosaur should be just around the corner

Another cool waterfall

Flexibility is key

Me with two of the twelve (well, 7 because two fell over and two never existed) apostles

London Bridge, which used to have a second arch on the left ill that collapsed

After the Great Ocean Road, we headed north to the Grampians National park. The Grampains is great for seeing Kangaroos, hiking and (apparently) robot waiters.

The real lady's hat

Had to pay $10 for him to let us pass

No, I wasn't scared standing near the edge, thank you.

Describing my plan to improve this hike by adding a multi-storey car park with a McDonalds & Starbucks right over this horrible river

Photo with a local

Robot waiter. We didn't tip it

We arrived back in Melbourne on Sunday ahead of our wine tasting tour on Monday.

A cool Melbourne jazz bar with a jammy band on

Some ugly bloke in the way of this picture of the vineyard

Tuesday saw us fly to Sydney & check out the harbour area in the eve.

Went to the opera house and got this cool picture with the AMP office

For anyone who didnt work with me at my last job, I spent a significant part of 2025 working on projects for AMP, so this was like meeting a celebrity for me

Wednesday was spent mooching around Sydney before heading to Manly beach in the afternoon. We got hit with some pretty torrential rain on the ferry over which forced us to take shelter in the pub. Whilst at the pub we also had to drink lots of beer, before going to meet my old colleague, Tom, with whom we had to have more beers.

This turtle must have been on the beers last night. Poor bloke

Quite a change in weather! Torrential rain on the ferry to manly

One for the Engine folk, meeting up with old colleague Tom for one too many beers. It felt like being back in London on a Thursday after work

Which brings us to Thursday, with another busy week ahead before Dec leaves next Friday.

If anyone wants a postcard, please reply with your address and ill make it happen

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from Landing Pads Brunswick, a hostel in the north Melbourne suburb Brunswick. The weather this week has been mostly overcast and cool, a nice break from the 40s of weeks past.

We've just hit 50 subscribers! As a reward, you all get a special gift... This email! Yay.

After I wrote to you last week, I finished the day with a walk to the beach @ St Kilda for the sunset, how pretty.

On Thursday I finally got to move out of the smelly party hostel in St Kilda. I woke up for a morning run around the Melbourne F1 circuit before heading to the YHA. As part of the move, I decided to loose my sunglasses, which I wasnt too upset about cause I didnt like them anyways.

My new sunnies

I took a ride on the tourist tram which uses the original Melbourne trams, built from 1923-1956. They're very noisy and bumpy, but retro so its allowed

Friday and Saturday were quite quiet. I forgot to take pictures so words will have to do. I met up with an old friend from uni, Liam, for pints and a Parmi. I met his girlfriend & 14 week old Dachshund puppy, Moose! Moose was incredibly cute, quite timid at first until I gave him some treats. After that we were best friends.

After the pub, I went out for more beers with people from the hostel. I then spent Saturday in bed with a hangover.

Sunday saw me rise early, still feeling groggy cause I went out again (sans-alcohol) on Saturday eve, to move hostel again, to where I am now. Brunswick is more of an up and coming neighbourhood, with plenty of cool cafes & bars.

With a banging headache I dragged myself around a museum about film and saw a march against the Iranian government.

Something cool at the film museum. Idk what was going on

The Iranian government have been censoring & killing their own people. So the Iranians here are not happy about it.

Now... I have to talk about something. The whole time in Melbourne I've been getting followed by a strange man... I didn't want to say anything to start but its been too long now.

In this picture at the Botanical Gardens you can see him hiding in the bushes

When I was at the Shrine of Remembrance, there he was just waving at me.

If you look closely, he's on this bridge, just staring at me

On Monday morning, safe in my new hostel, there he was, eating breakfast right in front of me. He kept giving me side eye.

I quickly finished my brekkie and ran off to my room. But he followed me! He claimed we have been friends for 8 years! That we lived together for a year in uni and we'd organised a 3 week trip together in Australia. I have no clue who this man is. He seemed harmless and a little lonely so I took him under my wing. His name (apparently) is Dec Kelly.

He made me take this picture to prove his identity

He followed me to this lovely Japanese bakery

Once i let him be my friend, he wouldn't stop getting in the way of my photos

He did take me to get a lovely meal at an Italian restaurant. Maybe he's not all bad

But he did force me to take a picture of him with this sign because "it would look like a hat"

He also liked playing with the bins. Eww

I can't say for sure, but I think this is him playing with pigeons outside the central library

With Dec on my team, we tried to go to museums on two separate days and made it to a grand total of two due to large amounts of dilly dallying :(

Hopefully next week is more successful.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from Nomads in St Kilda (Melbourne) on a cool Wednesday afternoon. One night I even had to put my fleece on, it got that cold :o

I accidentally booked a party hostel 🪇 I'm a party pooper so I've not joined in any of the partying, instead choosing to get an early night 🥱

On Thursday last week took the bus to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. On hearing the name Hahndorf, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd taken a short 9600 mile bus journey to a small hamlet in Germany, but you'd be wrong! It's a small town, originally founded/stolen from the Aboriginal people by German settlers in 1839. I didn't expect to be drinking imported German beers in 35c heat in Australia, but there I was.

When I got back to Adelaide, I popped to the Himeji Japanese Gardens.

Friday and Saturday were rather quiet. With the highlight being this fork

On Sunday, I woke early to catch the 10 hour 7:45am train to Melbourne. It was well over double the price of the plane but I like trains. I had a great time.

We crawled through the Adelaide hills before descending into 450 miles of nothing but wheat, cows and the occasional farming town.

View from the Adelaide Hills. The train was mostly empty. Probably explains the price.

Moo

The scale of the farmland here is insane. Pictures don't do it justice. Fields like this would run on for interrupted for ages. (A happy little aside... This type of large scale mono crop farming is terrible for the soil & environment. It's only really manageable for a few more decades until the soil dies...)

On Monday, after settling into my noisy noisy party hostel, I went for an explore round the local area, followed by a trip round the Melbourne CBD (Central business district, not the oil found in weed) with Dylan, a friend I met in the hostel in Adelaide.

This is Luna Park. I don't like it

A cool guy I found in the bathroom of a coffee shop/cocktail bar. Coffee was good

Melbourne's answer to The Crystal Palace (No, not the South London football team, the big glass building after which Crystal Palace is named). According to a plaque, this is the only International Exhibition Building still remaining where it was built in 1880. (We moved the Crystal Palace then we tore it down. Maybe someone started throwing stones inside it)

A turtle inside the Melbourne Museum

I thought the Lizard on the right was fake till I came back later and it was gone.

Bidgee-widgee, hehe

This sign talks about how "hundreds" of Communal Huntsman Spiders enjoy living under the bark of rotting logs, like the one in the top right of this photo. After looking through the viewing box just outside the picture, I can confirm there were spiders in the log. (I had to get Dylan to look through it first because I was scared)

Some iron ore, how pretty

Me in the library

This is where batman was born

What a busy Monday! Tuesday was more quiet. I went round St Kilda a bit more. It gives Blackpool but a bit nicer. Its not quite my vibe. I'll be changing hostels soon. I did however spot some interesting things on my walk round the area.

I don't think whoever owns this restaurant has ever been to Derby (Neither have I)

Someone was clearly not happy with their yoghurt (they were all full)

And that brings us to today. I went round the Shrine Of Remembrance, built in the wake of WW1, which contains a museum detailing Australia's war and peacekeeping activities. They failed, however, to mention the war they lost against Emus.

Imagine going to someone's house and they have a 9/11 rug on the floor. Beautiful craftsmanship

I don't think this road is up to health and safety regulations

Memorial for the very brave, very fast (34mph average speed), WW2 carrier pigeon, DD.43.T.139, in the newly opened Anzac Metro station (Yes, I did ride the new metro tunnel just for the fun of it and no I don't have a problem with trains) Thank you for your service, DD.43.T.139. (For anyone interested, DD = Department of Defence, 43 = year of enlistment (1943), T = T Detachment of 10 Pigeon Section, attached to Detachment 55 Port Craft Company & 139 is the pigeon number. Don't ask how or why I know this)

After catching the metro tunnel north, I wandered around the Uni of Melbourne campus. It's such a nice uni.

A pretty butterfly I chased round the garden in the uni till it landed

My reading spot in one of the uni gardens. We didn't get this in Lancaster!

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from the YHA in Adelaide again. Its been another chilly 26c day after a week with days pushing mid 40s!

I was told some of the images didn't load last time. Ive tried to fix that but please let me know if you have issues this time.

Last Thursday, after I sent my email, I went to the Botanical Gardens then took the bus into the Adelaide hills to watch the end of Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under. It was perhaps the best view from a bus I've ever had.

On Friday I caught the start of Stage 3 at Henley Beach. Matt gave me an all access pass, so I spent the rest of the morning swanning around the start line with a bunch of pro cyclists.

All Bahrain merched up with Matt at the start line

Right up in the action for an interview with British Pro cyclist, Adam Yates

Riders lining up at the start. I definitely felt out of place lol

That was going to be the end of the day for the race for me, but a lovely photographer called Lewis who I met at the start line gave me a lift to the finish in Nairne.

Matt & co at the finish line of Stage 3

Look Mum, I'm on telly!

Saturday was 40c and saw the fun part of the cycling cancelled due to the risk of the bush setting on fire and killing all the cyclists & spectators (not fun)

I went on a tour about the Aboriginal population in the area instead of the cycling. One interesting part the guide told us about was the aboriginal justice system. Do something naughty, get a spear through the leg. Do something really naughty, get a poison laced spear through the chest... People don't misbehave. It's still practised in some communities today!

In the evening, I went to watch some bike racing in a multi-storey car park. The atmosphere was pretty sick!

The rider on the left is a pro (who's name escapes me) who just shoved the amateur on the right towards the barrier on the way into the final corner. He was not best pleased. But that's racing!

I went behind the scenes at the racing again on Sunday. I parked up in the feed zone where the riders pick up more food & drink which was pretty hectic.

Look mum, I'm on telly again! (To the right of the middle rider)

Monday hit 45c so I stayed inside all day. When I did head outside (at 7pm!) I was hit with dry heat I've only ever experienced in a sauna. (Thank you global warming). I went to Glenelg beach with some friends from the hostel for a swim & sunset

Had to risk getting the camera quite close to the water for this one. I think it was worth it!

Tuesday was my museum day. Some of my faves are below...

The detail in this one is insane, hence why it was copied hundreds of times by other artists

I have no clue whats going on here

That red mess is made of individual red strings!

And today (Wednesday) I hiked 15km up to Mount Lofty. I didn't see a single spider, snake, kangaroo, koala or wallaby all day. You may see this as a victory or a loss, depending on how much you like/dislike the aforementioned animals. I am undecided.

The view back over to Adelaide

Not sure how the hole got in there

Questionable name. It was a good trail tho

I'll be in Adelaide for the rest of this week. Before catching the train (yay) to Melbourne on Sunday.

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from the YHA in Adelaide. Its looking like a slight break from the heat today, topping out at 26 🥶
Today I'm heading into the Adelaide hills to watch Stage 2 of the Men's Tour Down Under bike race 🚲

Pretty much immediately after sending the last update I ripped a few massive holes in one of the 3 shirts I brought on this trip, so I spent a bunch of time this week sewing that up.

I dont have an after picture, so youll have to imagine it

I headed out to see Mangles Bay, named after my friends family (See the bad reasons why here). It wasnt the nicest place, but it was sunny & i got fish n chips so it wasnt all bad.

After the lows of mangles bay (it wasnt that bad lol), I went on a road trip to Bussleton & Bunker Bay with someone I met in the hostel.

We walked down the 1.8km (!!) long jetty, saw a cool train and went in an underwater observation thing. (I saw a fish eat a crab but the video is too long to upload here)

A fish chillin a few meters underwater at the observation deck @ Bussleton Jetty

A cool solar powered train. I now have a pin badge with the train on it.

The beach @ Bunker Bay. The waves did this weird thing where they crashed into each other and created a sawtooth pattern on the coastline. I didnt think to get a video to illustrate this better...

Mandatory Kangaroo sign on the roadtrip back to Perth. We did see a bunch of actual Roos, but didnt get a snap

My last few days in Perth were pretty relaxed. I went to some galleries & museums, to Scarborough Beach & saw lots of people kitesurfing

A bear made out of feathers in the WA Art Gallery. Part of Paola Pivi's I don't like it, I love it exhibition.

After I landed in Perth I met up with Matt (No pics, I will get one for next episode) in Adelaide for a coffee & bacon buttie (was too hungry, no pics).

He took me backstage at the tour down under where I got to see some of the magic of pro cycling! After that I went & took some pics of the riders on the first time trial stage thru the city.

Seconds before I got killed by a pro cyclist

Bye for now!

P.S.
Missed an episode? Check the archive here.

P.P.S
Been forwarded this letter and not a subscriber? Subscribe here

Hello !

I'm writing to you from The Shiralee Hostel in Perth. It's a bit of a strange hostel, most of the people have been living here for months on end because they cant find a flat in Perth :(

I started my travels in Doah on the 7th Jan. It was actually much nicer than I expected! I stayed in a two room suite in a Hilton for £15 a night (fancy!)

Souk Waqif was really nice, I bought some dates & got some yummy dinner for £1.50!

The next day took me to the city's eco district & a district called Katara.

The outdoor, air-conditioned, plaza in the eco district. Not very eco when its run on oil... But it was a nice area

A rather nice mosque in Katara

On my last day, everything was shut until 13:30, so I only made it to the Islamic art museum which was well worth the trip. My favorite piece is this cool monkey.

I also saw the obligatory Qatari with his falcons trying to go through the gates in the airport

And that marks the end of my three days in Doha.

I've been in Perth since the 10th. It's hot! About 30c most days. Perth is quite a nice city, but quiet and sprawling.

I've taken it quite slow. Ive been to...

• Kings Park (twice) to see the Aussie National Road Cycling Championships
• Rottnest Island to cycle around, see quokkas and relax on the pristine beaches
• South Perth, across the bay from Perth
• Freemantle, the hippy capital of Perth, where I spent 1 hr talking to a hippy in a coffee shop

I also played football in the park against a bunch of Italians (and won! Suck it Italy)

One of the many beaches on Rottnest Island

A Quokka! They're marsupials, just like Kangaroos

Cycling round Rottnest Island (or Rotto as the Aussies call it)

Perth's skyline from the South Perth Foreshore

Thats all for now!

See you next week,
Love from Izaak